Michael intended to kill Al Capone.
But first he had to tell Capone who he was. He wanted Capone to know that betraying Michael O’Sullivan ten years ago had finally come back to bite him in his fat evil ass. Michael wanted to see in the Big Fellow’s eyes the fear and anguish and the realization of just who it was that had come calling.
On the train, thoughts that had danced, tauntingly, at the periphery of his consciousness from the beginning, only now came to the fore, forcing Michael, with the deed a day away, to confront certain realities...
Could he find a way to settle this score without losing his own life? Was there a way to be alive two days from now, with a future of some kind ahead of him? Could he dupe the shrewd Frank Nitti into thinking Michael Satariano had no role in Al Capone’s death?
If so, the possibility of a normal life — the small-town life with Patsy Ann he’d brushed aside for this opportunity to avenge — nagged at him. Wasn’t that what he wanted most of all, to replace what had been taken from him, so long ago? A normal life, a family life, with a loving wife and healthy, happy children, in the secure warmth of hearth and home...?
That would have been his dream, at least if he’d allowed himself to dream it. If he had dared dream it. In a world where men like Capone and Ricca thrived — for that matter a world where the leaders of great nations like Germany and Japan and yes, Italy, behaved no better than the gangster chiefs of big cities like Chicago — could such a small, mundane dream ever be a reality?
For all the home-front flags and bands and warm welcomes waiting for a “hero” like him, Michael saw around him an America where telegrams announced the loss of a son to loving parents, where a pretty girl of eighteen was a shattered grieving widow, where a high school baseball game was canceled because last season’s star player had been killed in action. And somewhere in the Philippines, right now, his friends and comrades were in prison camps, possibly facing torture, if they were lucky enough to be alive...
Michael Satariano — Michael O’Sullivan, Jr. — was a soldier. He could no longer fight the Japanese or the Germans; but he could do his country — and the memory of his dead father, brother, and mother — the service of removing from the face of the earth the blight of Alphonse “Scarface” Capone. Who even now, from a distance, ruled the Chicago Outfit, barely having to lift his pudgy fingers.
Little of the mansion was visible from the road, thanks to an eight-foot concrete-block wall. Michael pulled in at the spiked-iron gate before heavy oak portals. No guard met him, but, using a house phone on a stucco pillar, he announced himself while still in the Packard, receiving no acknowledgment. He was just starting to think that the phone was dead when a slot in one oak door slid open, speakeasy-style, and dark eyes under bushy dark eyebrows gave him the once-over.
The portals swung open, and then the gate, courtesy of a tall, solidly built guard in white slacks and a white short-sleeve shirt, cut by the dark brown of a shoulder holster. Michael waved at the deeply tanned guard and received a nod for his trouble; the Packard headed down the graveled drive, the doors and gate closing behind him.
To his right was that white concrete wall, to his left an elaborate rock garden; ahead the gravel drive ducked under the archway of a mission-style gatehouse, to curve around to the looming mansion itself. Perhaps a dozen palms surrounded and shaded the impressive beige two-story neo-Spanish stucco structure; the arched windows wore green-and-brown-striped canvas awnings, the flat tile roof also green.
A castle fit for a king — in this case, King Capone.
Michael pulled up into the area where the gravel drive widened to accommodate parking, though only one other vehicle was present, a 1941 aquamarine Pontiac. As Michael got out, a slender dark-haired man in a white suit mirroring his own came out the front door, followed by a colored servant in a black vest and white shirt and dark trousers.
Holding out his hand, the man spoke in a slightly squeaky tenor: “Sergeant Satariano, a delight, an honor, sir... I’m John Capone, but my pals call me Mimi.”
Michael’s host had an oblong, pleasant face that seemed a more handsome if less forceful version of his famous brother’s. His white shirt was open at the neck (Michael had worn a light blue tie).
“Thank you, Mr. Capone,” Michael said, shaking hands with Big Al’s younger brother, whose grasp was mild despite much enthusiastic arm pumping.
“Make it Mimi, please. This is Brownie, our houseboy — he’ll get your bag.”
Michael nodded to the “boy,” who was about forty. Brownie nodded and smiled back.
Mimi slipped an arm around Michael’s shoulder and walked him to the side of the house. “Michael... is it Michael or Mike?”
“Either.”
“Mike, Frank Nitti has nothing but good things to say about you. I was thrilled to get to meet you, and I know Mae feels the same. Medal of Honor! Damn! And you haven’t forgotten your Sicilian roots, good for you!... I think Sonny’s coming over tomorrow to shake your hand, too.”
“Sonny?”
“Al’s son. He’s about your age. He’s a mechanic over at the Miami Air Depot — tried to get in the army, but he’s got a bum ear.”
As they strolled along the side of the house — a paved walk and mosaic patios edged it — Michael noted a stocky, swarthy tough in a yellow sport shirt and tan trousers; he wore a shoulder holster with a revolver, and was ambling up and down that side of the mansion. Another guard, again in a sport shirt with shoulder holster, sat on a beach chair on one of the patios, reading Ring magazine. Another guard, next patio down, sat engrossed in Spicy Mystery, a pulp with a naked woman tortured on the cover.
The guards in their casual attire looked like they should be lugging golf clubs on the links, not weapons around the grounds of a gangster’s palace... though the lawn and shrubs were as carefully tended as any country club’s.
Mimi noticed Michael tallying the help and said, “We have five outside, including the gate guard, and two in the house.”
“Day and night?”
“Yeah, three shifts. Usually we only have four on the grounds, but ’cause of Frank’s concern, I canceled days off. Beefing up, a little.”
“Good to hear. Good-size staff.”
“Twenty-one guys, all from Chicago. Know their stuff.”
Maybe, but every guard was in his midthirties or older; in the Outfit, Michael knew, if you hadn’t made a mark by your early thirties, you weren’t going anywhere. King Capone or not, these were not the first team.
Not that that made them pushovers or any less deadly than any thug with a gun.
And there were a lot of them, with — as Mimi Capone explained — half a dozen living on site, in the gatehouse as well as a two-story Moorish-style cabana, just beyond the endless backyard swimming pool.
“Would you mind pointing out Mr. Capone’s room, Mimi?”
“Not at all, Mike — that’s it right there.”
The younger Capone indicated a second-floor balcony; underneath, on the first floor, was one of those arched windows with its striped awning.
“First floor awning’s got to go,” Michael said.
“Pardon?”
“Second floor don’t matter, but take a look at this.”
Michael walked over and demonstrated how he could step on the first-floor window ledge, and hoist himself up on the metal framework of the awning, giving him easy access to Al Capone’s balcony.
“Jeez, Mike — I see what you mean.”
Michael dusted off his hands as he and Mimi began to walk again. “I want those awnings taken down tomorrow morning, before Mr. Nitti arrives. Okay, Mimi?”